Ooohhh, what a wasted premise! When I saw the episode guide, I crossed my fingers, because I thought that this was going to be one of the DEFINITE Bender episodes; just because so MUCH could have been developed out of Bender's typical attitude and in-your-face liners. When I finally saw it, disappointment struck me. You got the scenario by now, if you've seen the episode. You must've gotten the bad Rocky ripoffs, and every other wrestling, boxing and every other action B-movie cliché on the episode. The problem is that the screenplay doesn't go anywhere; elements are thrown in and Bender fells uncharacteristically passive - when so many possible replies could have been ripped off of him. The Gender Bender was a nice twist, paved with ridicule, but it really didn't pay off in comical terms. I didn't laugh at all with this subterfuge. One element that was really taken out of nowhere was Leela's master. A typical B-movie element that really felt out of place, mainly because the spectator doesn't know the guy from Adam, and the episode doesn't even try to make part of the story. His presence was ENTIRELY gratuitous, and an unfortunate character cameo. Maybe in a future Futurama (oh, my god;) episode we'll get the chance to see him in a better context. I'd really appreciate a better episode on Leela's "training", I think it had potential. The robots that Bender fought were bland, none of them remarkable in any way - and we could have had Clamps from the Robot Mafia in (and the Robot Mafia itself, for all it's worth, illegal bets on robot wrestling and other illicit deals would be more than welcome in this ep), or even Robotic Nixon (41-times World Champion, in the past 41 days)... you get the drift. That Immigrant one was the last drop; badly conceived, another concept flushed down the toilet. The directing and animations were competent, but they really couldn't add much to a bland episode. There were two great scenes however that I really loved and feature as unique in Futurama's already great repertoire of 3D animations: 1) the black-and-white slow-motion scene in Bender's final fight ("mommy..."); 2) Leela's fight was also extrememely well-done. But just this doesn't amount to much. On the whole, the episode fails all its goals, and, along with "Brannigan Begins Again" it's one of the worst episodes of the season. Too bad.

SilverLight gave 3 points

15.05.2002

#7 by Gianlugh

I saw it 20 times, I love it

Gianlugh gave 5 points

30.05.2002

#8 by Slimijs

This episode is weak. I love Futurama, but thid episode simply sucked full time!!!

Slimijs gave 2 points

12.07.2002

#9 by frodoman

I loved it, especially the "gender bender"

frodoman gave 5 points

13.08.2002

#10 by Stephen Gillespie

You know, Bender and the robots he faced are similar to some very wrestlers from Old School WWF, New Generation WWF, Early-90s WCW and WWF Attitude: Bender the Offender(Bender's first gimmick) is like Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock since he has the fans on his side! The Gender Bender(Bender's second gimmick) bears a big resemblence to Goldust since both are gay in the ring! The Clear Cutter is based on the gimmick that Matt "I'm the original Doink the Clown" Borne potrayed in WCW as the mighty Blumberjack named Big Josh! Billionaire Bot is a robotic cop-off of former wrestler The Million Dollarman Ted Dibiase. The Foreigner is similar to The Iron Sheik since hs has a mustache! The Chain Smoker is also like longtime wrestler and road agent The Brooklyn Brawler because they're both big, fat and smokers to boot! And Destructor is similar to all the giants in pro-wrestling like Kevin Nash, El Gigante, the late great Big John Studd and the late great Andre the Giant!

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